Friday, June 12, 2009

50-48 #69: IT WAS THE PICTURES THAT GOT SMALL, BEING THE FIRST-EVER 50-48 PHOTO ESSAY, DISPLAYING OUR PICTURES FROM THE TALLAHASSEE SUPERREGIONAL

50-48 #69: IT WAS THE PICTURES THAT GOT SMALL, BEING THE FIRST-EVER 50-48 PHOTO ESSAY, DISPLAYING OUR PICTURES FROM THE TALLAHASSEE SUPERREGIONAL ON THE EVE OF THE RAZORBACKS' IMPENDING RUN THROUGH THE FIELD AT THE COLLEGE WORLD SERIES, ON ITS WAY TO A FIRST EVER ARKANSAS BASEBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP; OR, HOW WE SPENT OUR SUMMER VACATION

Howdy folks! After the Superregionals last week, 50-48 posted a brief but grammatically sound update as to its intricacies, but we did so from our crappy Tallahassee motel room, which evaporated soon after the post, denying us the ability to send our customary email update to all you devoted readers. Similarly, we returned home after the glorious conquest in the hopes of putting our pictures from the decisive game on the blog, so you could feel what it was like to experience that monumental victory first hand. Again we were thwarted, as the internet connection at 50-48 headquarters is unable to accomodate such technological leaps. But now, we are confident that the day will be won. Behold!


Batting practice!


More batting practice, with gratuitous scoreboard shot.


The Hogs gather in their usual huddle before taking infield practice.


Introducing the lineups.



The Hogs take the field!




First pitch!





What we here at 50-48 assumed would be the last pitch, as we were up 2, with two outs and two strikes. This was the beginning of our potential demise, as a Seminole rally gave them three runs and the lead in the top of the ninth.






But no matter! Fuck all, we win anyway on Mr. Darr's walkoff double in the bottom of the ninth! Let the dogpiling begin!













And let it continue!













The Seminoles console themselves as the Hogs continue to celebrate.













SPORTSMANSHIP! Thanks, college baseball, for teaching us all a lesson.













The mighty Diamond Hogs leave the field, discussing potential in-flight drinks on the plane ride to Omaha.













50-48 and fellow Razorbacks mill around, waiting for the Hogs to reappear after the game was over and the dejected Seminole fans had long since gone home.













Brett Eibner, center fielder on Friday, pitcher on Saturday, signs some autographs.













Some painted-up Hog fans pose for a photo!












The FSU Circus! Yes, no shit. Florida State University has its own self-sustaining circus. Students can participate as an elective. THAT. IS. AWESOME. 50-48 would like to thank everyone in Tallahassee and everyone at FSU, all of whom were surprisingly nice, considering some of the horror stories about them that we had heard from Gator fans who deride them as troglodytes and glue-sniffers.

And thus ends the first-ever 50-48 pictorial retrospective. Maybe we'll do it again during football season. Maybe not. Regardless, we have a difficult game against Fullerton tomorrow, and 50-48's stupid job keeps us from going to Rosenblatt Stadium to watch it live and take more pictures for you. No matter. We'll be watching on television, and we know you will be, too. Granted, Fullerton is the best baseball team we've seen all season, but if you had asked any reasonable college baseball fan whether or not we would have slaughtered Oklahoma as we did, or whether we would come up with a road sweep of FSU, they would have said you were crazy. Thus derives our eternal optimism. GO HOGS GO! BEAT THE TITANS!
50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

Saturday, June 6, 2009

50-48 #68: OMAHA

50-48 #68: OMAHA

Hi there! Long time, no see! 50-48 has been on yet another hiatus, but we've returned for this update: We're Going To Omaha! We have just returned to 50-48's luxury suite in downtown Tallahassee, Florida after witnessing the Hogs' miracle ninth-inning walkoff to take the boys to the COLLEGE WORLD SERIES!

We here at 50-48 are too exhausted from two long days of playoff baseball (yesterday's game lasting a mind-numbing 9 hours), and we have a sunburn. And it hurts. But when we return to home base, and once we figure out how, we will be providing a magnificent picture essay of all the photos we took at today's game! You'll feel like you were THERE!

We here at 50-48 WERE there. And it was glorious. It wasn't quite the same as beating #1 LSU 50-48 on November 23, 2007, but it was goddamned close. Woo Pig Sooie! We'll be back in the next few days with the pictures. GO HOGS GO!

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

Monday, April 6, 2009

50-48 #67: EMERGENCY UPDATE: #1 v. #1

50-48 #67: EMERGENCY UPDATE: #1 v. #1

Dear everyone,

The Diamond Hogs are ranked NUMBER ONE in the Collegiate Baseball poll! We totally deserve it. We’re now 22-6, the best record in the SEC.

Meanwhile, lurking in the dark shadows of cacti and giant crevasses in the earth, the Arizona State Sundevils are ranked number one in the Baseball America poll.

There are plenty of reasons to hate the Sundevils. The most important, of course, is that it is the alma mater of one Barry Lamar Bonds, who single-handedly destroyed baseball for a number of inglorious years. But perhaps more importantly, Arizona is the state that once shamelessly arrested 50-48 and threw us in jail just before we had to attend a wedding in California. They put us in a holding cell with a paranoid psychotic named Loupe, who was awaiting arraignment on double-murder charges. Loupe did not have much to say. To us. Instead, he bided his time by rocking slowly back and forth, talking to the wall in pigeon Spanish.

Loupe scared the crap out of us. Sometimes we still curl up into a little ball thinking about him, hugging our knees and saying the lord’s prayer.

Anyway, the Diamond Hogs will avenge us tomorrow and Wednesday, as the Sun Devils are coming to Baum Stadium!!!!!!! It will be #1 versus #1 in the most anticipated college baseball series of the year! The world will be watching, and if you are in and around the area, YOU BETTER FUCKING BE THERE.

50-48 begs all of you in Fayetteville to attend, and show these fucksticks from Arizona what the SEC is all about. We here at 50-48 have already started tailgating, and expect you all to do the same. Drink until you’re half-dead, bring a box of syringes, then attend the game and throw them at the players. Or, perhaps, burn an iguana in effigy.

Either way, it’s a HUGE baseball series at Baum for the next two days!

50-48 will be following the action intently from its secret lair somewhere in the swamps of south Louisiana, and encourages everyone who attends to email a report from the games! If we get some good ones, we’ll post them! So go to the game, take notes, organize them after the series in a hilarious, preferably raunchy, X-rated essay, and send them to us! Let’s celebrate our college baseball coup in style!

Please, please, please go! And for those of you who remember, sit in the official 50-48 seat, so no inane freshman trying to please a girl he will never possibly score with will sit in it and ruin our baseball karma.

Freshman totally suck.

So does Barry Bonds.

So does Loupe.

Wait.

No he doesn’t.

We’re sorry, Loupe. We’re so, so sorry. Please don’t haunt our dreams tonight. I promise my parents weren’t part of the angry student mob who set you on fire in the school boiler room. They’ve never even BEEN to Elm Street, Loupe. I really like your sweater. And those claws! They make you look like Edward Scissorhands, in all the best ways. No, Loupe. No! Johnny Depp is NOT a douchebag. I promise. It was an ALLEGORY, Loupe. No. I won’t explain what that means. I can’t right now. I’m pissing myself with fear. And yes, 21 Jump Street was pretty awesome. I liked Richard Grieco, too. No. I don’t know why his career went south. I’m SORRY! Please don’t hurt me. I promise I’ll google Richard Grieco later and have a repository of facts about him in my brain for the next time you’re up there tinkering around. Please, please, please. I’m sorry. You don’t totally suck, and your outfit doesn’t make you resemble a douchebag. No, no. The blood stains are hardly even noticeable. I promise. That’s IN these days. They call that shabby chic. No, no. I promise I’m not trying to establish aesthetic dominance by throwing out jargon that only certain insiders understand! Please don’t accuse me of that, Loupe. I’m NOT BEING A DICK! Watch Bravo sometime, Loupe. Or E! Just go back to the boiler room! Talk to the wall in pidgeon Spanish. Here, I’ll sing you a lullabye:

Lullaby, and good night,
With pink roses bedight,
With lilies o'erspread,
Is my baby's sweet head.
Lay you down now, and rest,
May your slumber be blessed!
Lay you down now, and rest,
May thy slumber be blessed!

Lullaby, and good night,
You're your mother's delight,
Shining angels beside
My darling abide.
Soft and warm is your bed,
Close your eyes and rest your head.
Soft and warm is your bed,
Close your eyes and rest your head.

Sleepyhead, close your eyes.
Mother's right here beside you.
I'll protect you from harm,
You will wake in my arms.
Guardian angels are near,
So sleep on, with no fear.
Guardian angels are near,
So sleep on, with no fear.

Lullaby, and sleep tight.
Hush! My darling is sleeping,
On his sheets white as cream,
With his head full of dreams.
When the sky's bright with dawn,
He will wake in the morning.
When noontide warms the world,
He will frolic in the sun.

Wow. That took a weird turn somewhere. We’re not exactly sure where we were going with that. So let’s review once more:

GO TO THE FUCKING GAMES, WRITE ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCES, SEND THEM TO 50-48, REVEL IN THE FACT THAT WE WILL BE THE UNDISPUTED HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION OF COLLEGE BASEBALL AFTER THESE NEXT TWO DAYS.

GO HOGS GO! BEAT ASU!

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

50-48 #66: FEEL OUR WRATH, MOTHERFUCKERS

50-48 #66: FEEL OUR WRATH, MOTHERFUCKERS

Oh, Riffel! Why hath thou forsaken us? And why, for that matter, hath thou forsaken the love of Troy and Gabriella? Heady betrayal, indeed.

Would that thou were my girlfriend, so that I might stab your dunderheaded father as he hid behind a curtain as I made a demonstrative, long-winded speech to my mother, exuding a subtle, almost Oedipal sexuality that disturbed us both. Then I would either feign crazy or BE crazy, all the while unsure of whether my wooing of you was sincere or calculating. And you wouldn’t know either! We would have conversations like this:

50-48: Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
RIFFEL: No, my lord.
50-48: I mean, my head upon your lap?
RIFFEL: Ay, my lord.
50-48: Do you think I meant country matters?
RIFFEL: I think nothing, my lord.
50-48: That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.
RIFFEL: What is, my lord?
50-48: Nothing.

Of course, you’d know I was talking about your cunt. You’d be on your way to finding a crazy all your own, but you’d still have the right mind enough to catch the pun. Eventually, however, you’d just start wandering around your room, offering imaginary columbines and pansies to anyone who would take them. And then you would fucking drown yourself.

“Good riddance!” I would say, as it would be clear to all involved that you totally deserved it. “Riffel was a real bitch,” everyone would say at your funeral. “I can’t believe they’re giving her that clown’s grave. That clown was awesome.” And then, even as they were INSIDE a metaphor concerning one of the world’s great literary lights, they would quote ANOTHER of those auteurs, completely ignoring all anachronism. “A bitch is a bitch, whether poor or rich. I talk in the exact same pitch. Now the title bitch don’t apply to all women. But all women have a little bitch in them.” And, of course, by “bitch,” they would mean Riffel.

But alas, Riffel is not my girlfriend. And 50-48 is in the mood to dish out some punishment for his caustic rebuke of Troy, Gabriella, and US.

Normally at this point, 50-48 would rail in a terrifying manner about Ryan Mallet’s DUI arrest. It would provide you with yet another classic from Niggas With Attitudes: CLICK, to describe our frustration with the uncle tomism in the Fayetteville Police Department. We would say something to the effect of: What cop in his right mind would arrest the star quarterback of the Razorback football team? A cop that should be demoted to crossing guard duty at some church school in Springdale, relegated to watching as little miniature christians crossed the street, clutching the WWJD bracelets their mothers got them for Christmas, touching each other’s asses in a latent display of what will later become their overt, rebellious homosexuality.

At this point, we’d probably move back to the whole “cunt” thing from paragraphs prior. We’d tell you that the Old English CWITHE meant “a womb.” The Anglo-Saxon –CYND meant “nature or essence.” There was the Old Norse KUNTA and the Old Frisian and Middle Dutch KUNTE. We would tell you that all of these languages are offshoots of the venerable Proto-Indo-European language, which thrived 4,000 to 6,000 years ago. Then there would be the Latin CUNNUS, meaning “vulva,” and CUNEUS, meaning “wedge.” We would patiently explain that all of these words melded somewhere along the way to give us the anatomical obscenity we know and love today. And we would tell you that it found its modern form in the 13th century, standing in valiantly for the female external genital organs. By the 1920s, we would tell you, it was also a term of approbation for lewd, lascivious, or otherwise reprehensible women.

We would say something like: Riffel is a lewd, lascivious, reprehensible woman. And he is a total cunt.

Eventually, we would then move to our craptacular basketball team, disgrace to Bud Walton Arena that it is. We would describe the visceral emptiness that comes from getting dump-trucked by Vanderbilt, and having the loss be so pedestrian and expected that 50-48’s distant little retarded brother, the Vandy Sports Listserv, not even have the desire to call and talk shit. We wouldn’t call for Coach Pel’s head, but we’d come goddamn close. We would explain that we watch A LOT of college basketball, and we see freshmen-laden teams win games every motherfucking day. We are the WORST TEAM in the WORST major conference in America.

We would describe that time two days ago, when we strung that extension cord from our ceiling fan, then tried to hang ourselves to put us out of our misery. But then the shittiness of Hogball’s play moved through the television like a poltergeist, and managed to help us fuck that up, too.

We would use a lot of profanity. Because these things would upset us.

Then we would probably try to salve our wounds and yours by describing the Diamond Hogs, who have dropped a game to Kansas and one to Cal, but have otherwise remained perfect on the season. They have climbed to #18 in the rankings, and the prospects for even greater success are eminent. We would tell you that we’ve seen LSU’s disgusting new Alex Box Stadium, and we would assure you all that it is a typical LSU hellhole, as those people have no taste. Beautiful Baum Stadium at George Cole Field is and always will be the premier college baseball venue in the country.

We would stop a minute. Think about Baum and how much we love it. Then we would remember the anger and break you off a little Lords of Acid. Or, no wait. We would use this one instead.

But we’re not going to do that. Riffel decided to use the 50-48 comment section to rant against High School Musical and 50-48's perceived softness for deigning to present its relevant qualities to you, its cherished readers. Well, we here at 50-48 have decided to kick the softness up a notch. Instead of ranting about the police, or cunts, or basketball, or baseball, or the Lords of Acid, we will use our time to breakdown the “Ooh, Ooh, Itchy Woman” episode from Hannah Montana, Season One. Brace yourself, sucka MCs:

PROLOGUE

Miley Stewart’s class plays a particularly cruel transsexual trick on her friend Oliver. Miley is your average 14-year-old student, but she is also pop sensation Hannah Montana—a girl leading a double-life. She is like that Alias girl, without the burden of intricate international plots. Anyway, after the trick concludes, the class discovers it is going on a camping trip. Miley is eager, but her classmates are not.

ACT I

Scene 1

Because of friction with her classmates Amber and Ashley, Miley feigns illness in hopes that her father will allow her to stay home from school, thus avoiding the camping trip. He discovers her ruse, however, and she is forced to attend. Her father provided this advice: You lie down with dogs, you’re going to get up with fleas. (Shakespeare provided a similar device in Hamlet. Op cit above rant about Riffel the cunt.)

Scene 2

The class finds itself in the woods. Miley easily sets up her tent, but the aforementioned bitches Amber and Ashley take credit for her work. An ensuing fight leaves Miley and her friend Lily punished, left to do the camp’s dishes.

ACT II

Miley’s frustration boils over, as she decides to seek revenge on those dirty whores Amber and Ashley. A feaux bear attack leaves Bitchfest 90210 locked in the port-a-john, covered in the piss and shit of their classmates. (“The play’s the thing, wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king!”)

ACT III

It turns out that Miley’s ruse put her in poison oak, which she discovers while giving an interview as her alter-ego Hannah Montana. She tries to cover her fundamental discomfort by pretending to create a new dance move, but it only serves as a penultimate embarrassment for her. At the end, she is left itchy and alone. She was rightly slain. She had lied down with dogs, and she had gotten up with fleas. Fortenbras enters, stage left, and he becomes the new King of Denmark.

The King is dead. All hail the King.

FIN

Suck it, Riffel.

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

Friday, February 27, 2009

50-48 #65: ARKANSAS MUSICAL

50-48 #65: ARKANSAS MUSICAL

Alas, it has been a full month since 50-48 has come to you, full of throat and diction, filling your eye-holes with sound and fury, signifying nothing. In our time away, we have seen many changes to the 50-48 family, and therefore have foregone our communal time with you, the faithful Razorback nation. We regret this, but our 50-48 Gratuitous Apology Desk assures us that we had good reason. That it couldn’t be helped.

During our hiatus, Hogball has continued its monumental swoon, losing just about every game they’ve played. Nay. They have lost EVERY game. The 50-48 Context Desk assures us that the Alabama win didn’t count, as it was the team’s first game after its coach’s resignation and sometime soon after Ronald Steele quit. Twelve left-handed zombies who had already gnawed off their own left hands because brains were too scarce could have defeated the Tide in such a contest.

If those very same zombies poked out their own eyes, ripped off their right legs for an ill-advised jousting contest, then spent a month cutting their own thighs—slightly, carefully, just above the line of the miniskirts I’m imagining them all to be wearing—because they were upset about their zombie lots in life, or because Bobby told them he loved them, but then after he got in their pants, all of a sudden he decided that Brittney was his soul mate (AS IF!!! And the zombies SEE the way Brittney looks at them in homeroom, the bitch, and how she’s always like, “Bobby went through his undead phase, but he’s matured,” as if that magical moment in the back of his Mustang didn’t mean ANYTHING! As if when they were doing it, he didn’t totally forget about Brittney and his buddies, and they didn’t totally forget about how good brains taste on a hot summer night. Brittney is such a dirty cheerleader cunt anyway. The zombies feel sorry for her. They really do. Fratboy mattress, that’s what she is.), they would still beat the ever-living shit out of our pathetic basketball team.

Coach Pel, apparently, hasn’t given them the PROPER MOTIVATION.

And since OUR basketball team is so horrendous, 50-48 has decided to instead spend its few short moments here in front of you talking about a different team—the East High School Wildcats. Those aforementioned changes to the 50-48 family have led us to spend time with High School Musical, a five-act television movie that tells the story of star-crossed lovers Troy and Gabrielle, the jock and the brainiac, who find each other through the ancient art of singing.

True, 50-48 disapproves of its message that cliques are counterproductive. (Cliques help ensure that no one wants to be around 50-48, who is categorically left out of all groups, which leaves us plenty of free time to dream fancifully of a Hogball team that plays with guts and a zombie corps with a cutting fetish.) True also, it’s an overly-simplistic crib of Romeo and Juliet, complete even with a balcony scene, and doesn’t even give us the payoff of sex or double-suicide. And true, there were moments when our minds drifted to thoughts of which of the students parading around East High Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris would pick off first.

And then, of course, there are the plot holes. For example, Troy’s potential basketball career would be far more dependent upon his AAU tournament schedule than on his high school season—and particularly more than his play in one city championship game. The movie doesn’t acknowledge the evolution of modern scouting. Still, the story’s redemptive qualities far outweighed its debits.

And so, we would like to announce that High School Musical is now the official movie of 50-48. It is, taken in total, 50-48 writ large. First, it demonstrates the magical sexual power of karaoke. Second, and more important, it demonstrates the kinetic energy created when athletics and smarts come together.

And yes. We know what you’re thinking. 50-48 isn’t athletic. And, for that matter, 50-48 isn’t very smart. TRUE! But 50-48 was engaged in the act of WATCHING the jock and the brainiac. And by the transitive property, it’s safe to analogize by arguing that 50-48 likes watching athletics, and it enjoys the same things that smart people like, even though those things often confuse 50-48, leaving it in a dazed state, walking around its neighborhood, eating the buds off flowers, while the woman in the front yard watering her lawn looks on in disbelief. Then she says, “I’m going to call the cops,” to which 50-48 mumbles something to the effect of, “The deification of Gary Gilmore in Norman Mailer’s Executioner’s Song made me want to murder someone in a trailer park, but then I thought better of it, because the interpretive power of reading has the wholly existential consequence of making every written word an act of fiction, whether or not the author ever intended it that way.” Then she beats 50-48 with a fucking rake.

QED, motherfuckers.

Anyway, when our DVD goes back to Netflix headquarters, and Troy and Gabriella are memories, fading with temporal distance as all such memories do, we will be left to cope with the catastrophe of the season. 50-48 has come to terms with it, and has in fact decided to revel in the losing. The more games we lose, the more pathetic Texas looks for falling to us. The more games we lose, the greater percentage of wins our Texas victory becomes. REMEMBER: We beat Texas. This season will always be a success.

Besides, we’re young. There will be plenty of time for these green freshman to BOP TO THE TOP.

They will find themselves. And will, ultimately, be BREAKING FREE.

Sorry for the unannounced hiatus, 50-48icans. We’re bound and determined not to let it happen again. Until next time, buoy your spirits by hugging a Hog, watching High School Musical, or murdering someone from Texas.

It’s good to be back! Long live 50-48 and all its loyal friends!

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

50-48 #64: THE JOHN UPDIKE MEMORIAL EDITION

50-48 #64: THE JOHN UPDIKE MEMORIAL EDITION

(March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009)

Texts are like pieces of a puzzle that only roughly fit. There are little irregular spaces between them, and through these cracks, one feels, truth slips. History, unlike fiction and physics, never quite jells; it is an armature or rather randomly preserved verbal and physical remains upon which historians slap wads of supposition in hopes of the lumpy statue’s coming to life.

John Updike, Memories of the Ford Administration

Knowing that John Updike, BELOVED dean of American letters for a full half of the twentieth century, has now passed to THE AFTERLIFE, 50-48 is left in a state of supreme SELF CONSCIOUSNESS, STILL LOOKING for some kind of respite, staring at THE ALLIGATORS on campus here in Lafayette, FACING NATURE in its cruelest form, as if we were looking at THE FIRST PICTURE BOOK we ever saw.

Of course, the monumental PROBLEMS of the Razorback basketball team as it moves past the MIDPOINT of the season don’t help, leaving us standing as COUPLES, broken as GERTRUDE AND CLAUDIUS, as we stare at the PICKED-UP PIECES of yet another Hogball swoon. The ASSORTED PROSE of 50-48 is just MORE MATTER piled onto the back of a camel who is already broken by time and distance.

We are TOSSING AND TURNING over here at 50-48 headquarters, seeing our twelve hapless players turn from world-beaters into a JESTER’S DOZEN, JUST LOOKING as inferior players who would be better served taking ODD JOBS at the local A&P run past them to the basket, the PIGEON FEATHERS flying in the resulting melee. We fans, alas, are left HUGGING THE SHORE of sanity, knowing that this team may have TOO FAR TO GO before the short time allotted them has run dry, all the while giving DUE CONSIDERATIONS to the simple fact of their youth and inexperience.

Take, for example, our recent catastrophe against the boys from the Plains. We entered the game assuming that Jeff Lebo and his Auburn players were THE CARPTENERED HEN AND OTHER TAME CREATURES, but they turned, in the shuffle of real time game play, into THE CENTAUR. And we were no Theseus, unable to find the resolve OF THE FARM and translate it to the basketball court.

All over the state, we hear the same refrain: I am broken by these LICKS OF LOVE, doused in the misery of losing, crying MY FATHER’S TEARS, desperate for MORE STATELY MANSIONS, for that time that I will stand once again IN THE BEAUTY OF LILIES, that place of peace with MUSEUMS AND WOMEN, that place where I found myself somewhere in the depths of 1994. But those days are long gone. We’ve entered THE POORHOUSE FAIR, exiting through the SAME DOOR from which we entered.

What we really need is the return of Corey BECH, A BOOK about the fundamentals of basketball, or THE TWELVE TERRORS OF CHRISTMAS to come scare us back into action. Can you imagine? “BECH IS BACK!” the crowd would scream, knowing that the opposition would never keep BECH AT BAY.

As it stands now, we’d have a better chance if THE MUSIC SCHOOL ran a team out there to compete with Southeastern Conference competition. With the way a certain S. Welsh has been playing, defenders could stand as still as TELEPHONE POLES and remain confident that no harm will come to them. He is, in a sense, a TERRORIST, striking fear into the hearts of the towns and VILLAGES of Arkansas. Jimminy Cricket—or some other suitable representation of conscience—needs to sit quietly on Stephan’s shoulder and tell him when and when not to shoot. “BROTHER GRASSHOPPER,” he would say, “SEEK MY FACE. I promise you I can make this shot.” And the grasshopper would just frown, as if he were William Rufus King watching James BUCHANAN DYING. He would shake his head. “TRUST ME,” the grasshopper would say. “This is no SOFT SPRING NIGHT IN SHILLINGTON. This is the crush and muttle of a major college basketball game. Don’t shoot. For the love of God, don’t shoot.”

It’s almost as if we’re chasing an elusive white rabbit, hoping once found he will be the source of unimaginable wealth. We watch the RABBIT, RUN after it. “The RABBIT IS RICH!” we scream. But when we reach our destination, we find the RABBIT AT REST, nothing but fur and shit in its wake. There is no wealth. No riches. And no RABBIT REDUX will ever bring back our original vision, no matter how hard we try.

It has been A MONTH OF SUNDAYS since our last victory, leaving all of us with GOLF DREAMS, hoping that a conference championship, even in a minor sport like golf, can salve our bruised and aching wounds. It leaves us with MEMORIES OF THE FORD ADMINISTRATION, when Eddie Sutton’s teams clamored to life and gave Hogball fans everywhere hope.

But that hope seems frustratingly dead at this point. I have a better chance of getting to BRAZIL than getting to the conference basketball title. I have a better chance of convincing some poor, naïve girl to MARRY ME. It’s as if we traded in the Fayetteville squad for a ROGERS VERSION of the same team.

Of course, that isn’t to say the future isn’t bright. Our players are young, and TOWARD THE END OF TIME we might see some kind of success. Perhaps a visit to the WITCHES OF EASTWICK could provide some sort of potion or elixir that might heal our broken promise. Of course, there are plenty of widows there, too. And we here at 50-48 hear that THE WIDOWS OF EASTWICK are pretty slutty.

Which is good. We here at 50-48 are unashamed members of the VALENTINE GENERATION, selfish as it may be. And as lonely as we are right now, Hogball victories are just about the only thing we wouldn’t trade for hothouse monkey sex with any available widow. (Or, for that matter, non-widow.)

All of this can be rectified, of course, with a win on Thursday night against Alabama. The Hogs will attempt THE COUP on national television, so 50-48 encourages everyone to watch. We will be cheering on the Hogs with every ounce of our being, though, admittedly, that being is a bit on the shabby side these days.

Finally, 50-48 would like to say that we spend a lot of time here ON LITERARY BIOGRAPHY. Our love of books is the only thing that comes close to rivaling our admiration for and devotion to Razorback athletics. And the loss of John Updike today has completely felled us. We’ve been getting drunker and drunker as we’ve written this, hoping that those of you who are familiar with his titles will appreciate the composition.

Go Hogs Go. The world is a shittier place today without John Updike in it.

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

PS: We know, we know. Corey Beck spells his name with a “k,” not an “h.” Let it go.

PPS: If you’re bored (and unwilling to come to Lafayette to have hothouse monkey sex at 50-48 headquarters), please check out one of the titles in all-caps above. John Updike’s books can make your life magic. If you let them.


The past, insofar as it consists of human feelings, mostly vanishes, less enduring than recycled nitrogen.

John Updike, Memories of the Ford Administration

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

50-48 #63: FRIGHTENING MIDGET ATTACK!

50-48 #63: FRIGHTENING MIDGET ATTACK!

Monsters are everywhere. They creep up around us and into us and fidget with our insides and outsides. Some are furry. Others are scaley, but give the impression of being slimy, not because they ARE slimy, but because we have been crushed down by years of improper vocabulary to equate things that are scaley with things that are slimy. I blame primary school science videos.

Regardless, these monsters are everywhere, haunting us, and sometimes--at least for we fine few here at 50-48--telling us what to do. We first started talking to the monsters back in 1995, and their constant presence has grown through years of familiarity to be a kind of catharsis. But then there are sometimes new variables introduced into the paradigm, mucking up the system and jarring us back into the reality that not everyone talks to imaginary possums.

EX: Last week, as the Hogs were blowing yet another game to yet another inferior opponent, as I stood and watched from the front row of the Tad Pad in beautiful downtown Oxford, Mississippi, calling the Hogs with a sizable Arkansas crowd and giving shit to a certain referee who seemed to be plotting against us at every possession (the bald, black one, for those of you watching on television), the monsters crept in and reminded me that it was just a game. That I was fortunate enough to have front row seats for Hogball, and that I probably ought count my blessings.

But then, on the long, all-night drive home, as my frustration with our inability to make simple layups dissipated in a cloud of tiredness and quiet, new monsters started appearing. At first, I could only see them out of the corner of my eye. They would run across the freeway in front of me, stretched out as it was like a runway to hell, leading me back through the silent dark to another, more depressing silent dark back home. They would turn to me and giggle, narrowly avoiding being pummeled by my car. That’s about the time the billboards started melting. I watched as they dissolved right in front of me, still perched on their stands like Dali clocks. And then the newfangled mess would perk up, take life, and begin telling me to kill my parents.

They told me that my favorite team turns out not to be so good after all. They giggled at me. Then they turned into giant locusts and flew away.

By the time I got home at four in the morning, there was a midget in a toga and golf hat sitting in my passenger seat, explaining in Louis IVX’s French that we would lose again to Florida if Stephan Welsh was allowed to continue to shoot, foul, and turn the ball over at will. I patted him on the head, inherently doubtful, but amazed that I was able to understand him, then watched him turn into a puma and jump out of my car via the moon roof, attacking two young girls walking by on the sidewalk.

Here’s a lesson: Always listen to midgets.

But keep them away from young girls.

We sucked against State, sucked against Ole Miss, and sucked against Florida. The one constant in each of those losses was the disastrous play of Stephan Welsh. His confidence is admirable, god love him, but it is also misplaced. Someone needs to tell him that he isn’t very good. That his full-paid tuition is a glorious gift from Stan Heath, and that he should focus on that gift while fetching water for the eleven other players. He seems nice. He seems like he really wants to do well. For this, 50-48 and its legion of imaginary midgets love him unconditionally. But we’d prefer it he began minding the towels and jocks. Without his turnovers, his missed shots, and his bizarre fouls of three-point shooters, we might very well be 3-0 in conference.

But we’re not. We’ve yet to win. And we here at 50-48 are left talking to imaginary creatures and watching the landscape melt in front of us.

Here’s the problem with crazy night monsters and midgets who turn into pumas and attack young girls: They don’t go away until your team stops stinking on hot ice, so when you want your old monsters back, the ones that are always there and provide just as much catharsis as they do terror, you have no choice but to wait, wait, wait.

But waiting only gives the midgets more time to melt your clocks and pictures. Joseph Heller would call this a catch-22.

Joseph Heller, alas, is dead. And we play the Alabama schools next week. We here at 50-48 would love to tell you that they aren’t very good basketball teams. But neither are the Mississippi schools. Neither is Florida. We have no idea what to expect.

We know that there are monsters nibbling on the outer rim of our door outside. We know that French-speaking midgets NEVER come bearing good news. And we know that whatever the outcome, we love Hogball unconditionally.

Yosarian lives!!!!!!!!!!!!

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

PS: 50-48 would like to apologize to Brent Riffel for ever doubting his astute assessment of Stephan Welsh. Riffel is one of our monsters whose predictions are almost always true. Such is the punishment for doubting him.

(And also, he is, as far as we know, neither scaley nor slimey, depending on the state of your primary school education. Rather, picture Danny Noonan in Caddyshack, fresh off a relaxing haircut.)

PPS: 50-48 would like to thank Greg Richard and his lovely wife Amanda for hosting the 50-48 Hogball roadtrip, Rebel sycophants as they might be. We would also like to thank the Ole Miss student section for being such inveterate pussies that they didn't even have the balls to yell at us, even though we invaded the first row of their student section.

C'mon, Ole Miss! Man's game, motherfuckers. Man's game.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

50-48 #62: THE SEC BASKETBALL PREVIEW ISSUE (with an EMERGENCY UPDATE about tonight's game against State)

50-48 #62: THE SEC BASKETBALL PREVIEW ISSUE (with an EMERGENCY UPDATE about tonight's game against State)

Hello, everyone! Have the lingering effects of defeating two top 7 teams in a week worn off? Not over here at 50-48 headquarters. We’re plussing. And we’ve already started the day-long tailgate for tonight’s game against State.

This update is to let you know (particularly those of you outside of the broadcast coverage area for the game) that ESPN Gameplan is having a free preview this week. And so the Hogball-State game will be available for free! For Cox users, it will be on channel 603. Others can check your local listings. (Of course, it will be on television everywhere in Arkansas anyway, and some of you will be at the game, probably text messaging the 50-48 hotline and making us very, very jealous. You guys can suck it.)

And while I have you here, I might as well put off the work I’m supposed to be doing a little longer and provide some analysis of the team, cribbed as it will be from several personal emails we’ve sent to various Hogalites this week.

After being picked LAST IN THE SEC WEST in the preseason, the Hogs have proven that sportswriters are vagrants that never received legitimate college degrees. Courtney Fortson is the first true point we've had in a long, long time. He drives the lane too much, dribbles too high, and often misses open shooters on the wing, but 12 games into college, there’s reason to be optimistic. He has become the darling of the national media on this team, and any publicity he gets is good for recruiting and our eventual seed in the tournament. Also, as mentioned in a previous 50-48 installment, he has Predator dreadlocks.

More importantly, Michael Washington magically turned good this year. He doesn’t look appreciably heavier, but he’s playing like he weighs thirty more pounds. God love him, he’s our only real big man, and we here at 50-48 are coming to expect 20-10 every night he steps on the court. Despite Fortson’s publicity, he is the best, most important player on the team.

And then there’s Rotnei Clarke, who can rain threes at will. The problem with Rotnei is his ability to get good looks at the basket. 50-48 encourages you not to worry. Rotnei will ultimately be better once Courtney Fortson learns how to get him the ball. He can't really create his own shot, but he can nail them when he gets open. He just needs some set plays with high screens to get him free. (And Fortson needs to learn to pass without driving the lane.)

Michael Sanchez looks like fucking Frankenstein and doesn't play pretty, but he seems to get the job done. He looks terrible, but in every game he helps. We here at 50-48 are confused by this phenomenon, but we’re coming to grips with him. Besides, he's really the only 4 we have. And he’s a local. As long as he doesn’t accidentally kill a little girl while trying to demonstrate his affection for her, the villagers of Fayetteville probably won’t light up their torches and mob Dickson Street.

After a series of gutwrenching negotiations with the NCAA, Marcus Monk has joined the team and is a big help inside. Stefan Welsh is the same streaky shooter he always has been, but he seems to be streaking at the right moments, and he gives the youngsters a nice veteran presence. Marcus Britt can provide a couple of serviceable minutes every game, and Brandon Moore and Jason Henry are GOING TO BE GREAT. Trust us. As their minutes increase, they will continue to get better. They just LOOK like basketball players. They have all the tools, they just happen to play positions where they’re blocked from playing time by other starters. They’ll continue to get a little time every game. Watch them when they come in. They are going to be important parts of the dynasty we are about to create.

And with a down SEC, why can't we win the conference this year? We had no answers inside against Texas for three quarters of that game, but we more than compensated with surprisingly good perimeter defense, especially with freshmen playing it. Everybody hustles, even when it looks ugly. Everybody continued to think we could beat Texas, even after we had been down by seven for a good thirteen minutes. Besides, no one in the SEC is as good as either Oklahoma or Texas. We've won a true road game already at South Alabama, who's in the upper echelon of the Sun Belt. (50-48 loves the Sun Belt.) Sure we’re winning ugly. Sure we’re starting and playing a lot of freshmen. But 50-48 has proven time and time again that after severe rounds of heavy drinking, ugly can become beautiful very quickly. And the freshmen will only get better. They will face some hostile crowds on the road in the SEC, but they won’t face any teams better than the two they beat last week. And remember: Stan Heath isn't on the sideline to ruin them. He’s at South Florida, holding down that last place spot in the Big East, where he will stay until they unceremoniously fire him.

There ends the State of the Team as we enter SEC play. In the West, Alabama, Auburn, and State all suck. Ole Miss has the talent to be good, even though they aren’t playing like it. And LSU has a great record and a good new coach, but hasn’t really been tested yet. In the East, Tennessee is much better than their record, as is Kentucky. Florida and Vanderbilt also have pretty good teams. South Carolina and Georgia suck. There is no reason we can’t take the conference and remind all these dirty shitheads what Hogball is all about. We get both Tennessee and Kentucky at home, and as we’ve proven, no one is going to beat us at home. Our only intense road game will be at Florida on the 17th. And if we beat the two Mississippi schools this week and go into that game with the confidence of an undefeated conference record and a Top 15 ranking, we should be able to counteract the crowd. On a player-by-player basis, minus the crowd noise, we are hands-down better than them.

And on the topic of road games, barring some major catastrophe (and we here at 50-48 never rule out major catastrophes), 50-48 will be on the road this week, traveling to Oxford to see Hogball play Ole Miss. (Unfortunately, none of those fucks at the Tad Pad offered us a press pass. They have yet to master the core concepts of the printed word. That said, we’ve heard they will no longer be lighting the gym with lanterns, as electricity has finally come to campus! Thanks Tennessee Valley Authority!)

We are thinking about bringing a sign, saying something to this effect:

GREETINGS FROM FAYETTEVILLE!
WHERE OUR BASKETBALL COACH ISN’T A FLAMING RACIST
AND OUR FOOTBALL COACH ISN’T THE SCUM OF THE EARTH

50-48 welcomes any suggestions as to surrogates or improvements on the existing model. Here’s some more ideas to get your brain wheels turning:

GREETINGS FROM FAYETTEVILLE!
WHERE NO ONE DREAMS ABOUT BLOWING FAULKNER

Or how about this one:

I DROVE HERE FROM FAYETTEVILLE WITH A BLACK GUY
BUT SOMEONE IN CLARKSDALE LYNCHED HIM

Maybe:

PLAYING IN HIGH SCHOOL GYMS LIKE THE TAD PAD
REMINDS US OF THAT TIME WE FUCKED YOUR SISTER BEHIND THE BLEACHERS

All of these are good. Anything that will embarrass the nice people who invited us to the game will suffice. But we welcome your suggestions. Regardless, 50-48 will have a full report of the road trip next weekend.

Well, here we’ve gone and written a shitload of things, when all we really wanted to do was let you know about the ESPN Gameplan free preview. Oh well. We’ll reward you for your patience with this classic from 1984: CLICK.

GO HOGS! BEAT STATE! And then BEAT OLE MISS LATER IN THE WEEK!

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

PS: Of course, the other big benefit of this update is that it covers up 50-48 #61, in which I shamelessly cut-and-pasted a definition from the Oxford English Dictionary, which is totally illegal.

Shhh. Don’t tell…

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

50-48 #61: EMERGENCY UPDATE: INSERT UPSIDE-DOWN STUPID LONGHORN SYMBOL HERE

50-48 #61: EMERGENCY UPDATE: INSERT UPSIDE-DOWN STUPID LONGHORN SYMBOL HERE

bliss: n.

[OE. blí{edh}s (acc. blí{edh}se) str. fem. = OS. blîdsea, blîtzea, blîzza:

{em}OTeut. type *blî{th}sjâ- f. *blî{th}i-s, Goth. blei{th}s, OS. blîthi, OE. blí{edh}e blithe, joyous + suffix -sjâ-, standing, after dentals, for original -tjâ (cf. L. lætitia). Goth. has, instead, the parallel form blei{th}-ei:{em}OTeut. *blî{th}-în-. In later OE. by assimilation and vowel-shortening blí{edh}s became bliss, blis, ME. blisse: cf. OE. milds, milts (:{em}OTeut. *mild-sjâ- = *mild-tjâ-) mildness, clemency, ME. milze, milce, milse. The meaning of bliss and that of bless have mutually influenced each other since an early period; cf. BLESS v.1; confusion of spelling is frequent from the time of Wyclif to the 17th c. Hence the gradual tendency to withdraw bliss from earthly ‘blitheness’ to the beatitude of the blessed in heaven, or that which is likened to it.]

{dag}1. Blitheness of aspect toward others, kindness of manner; ‘light of one's countenance,’ ‘smile.’ (Only in OE.)

a1000 Metr. B{oe}th. ii. 30 Hi me towendon heora bacu bitere and heora blisse from.

2. Blitheness; gladness; joy, delight, enjoyment: a. physical, social, mundane: passing at length into b.

971 Blickl. Hom. 3 Maria cende {th}one Drihten on blisse. a1000 Cotton Psalm l. 99 (Gr.) Sæle nu blidse me, bilewit dryhten. c1200 Trin. Coll. Hom. 115 Hie weren swo bli{edh}e {th}at hie ne mihten mid worde here blisse tellen. c1340 Cursor M. 1013 (Trin.) Mony o{th}ere blisses elles, Floures {th}at ful swete smelles. c1380 WYCLIF Serm. Sel. Wks. II. 234 Two blessis ben,{em}blesse of {th}e soule and blisse of {th}e bodi. c1386 CHAUCER Man of Law's T. 1021 This glade folk to dyner they hem sette; In ioye and blisse at mete I lete hem dwelle. a1450 Knt. de la Tour (1868) 55 She lost alle worshipe, richesse, ese, and blysse. 1535 STEWART Cron. Scot. III. 268 Tha rouch rillingis, of blis that war full bair. 1593 SHAKES. 2 Hen. VI, I. ii. 31 And all that Poets faine of Blisse and Ioy. 1667 MILTON P.L. IV. 508 These two Imparadis't in one anothers arms..shall enjoy thir fill Of bliss on bliss. 1806 WORDSW. Ode Immortality 86 Behold the Child among his new-born blisses. 1841 L. HUNT Seer (1864) 54 He does not sufficiently sympathise with our towns and our blisses of Society.

b. Mental, ethereal, spiritual: perfect joy or felicity, supreme delight; blessedness. (Early instances difficult to separate from prec.)

c1175 Lamb. Hom. 15 Blisse and lisse ic sende. a1300 Cursor M. 605 A land o lijf, o beld, and blis, {Th}e quilk man clepes paradis. c1380 WYCLIF Serm. Sel. Wks. I. 142 To lyve evere in blis wi{th}outen peyne. 1483 CAXTON G. de la Tour Fiij, The grete reame of blysse and glory. 1591 SHAKES. 1 Hen. VI, V. v. 64 The contrarie bringeth blisse, And is a patterne of Celestiall peace. 1597 HOOKER Eccl. Pol. V. xxii. §13 To them whose delight..is in the Law..that happiness and bliss belongeth. a1649 DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN Cypr. Grove Wks. 31 O only blest, and Author of all bliss. Ibid. 26 All bless returning with the Lord of bliss. 1667 MILTON P.L. VIII. 522 The sum of earthly bliss Which I enjoy. 1747 GRAY Ode Eton Coll., Where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise. 1764 GOLDSM. Trav. 62 May gather bliss, to see my fellows blest. 1875 B. TAYLOR Faust I. xii. 141 The purest bliss was surely then thy dower.

c. esp. The perfect joy of heaven; the beatitude of departed souls. Hence, the place of bliss, paradise, heaven.

971 Blickl. Hom. 25 We ma{asg}on..éce blisse {asg}eearnian. a1225 Juliana 21 Ich schal bli{edh}e bicumen to endelese blissen. a1300 Cursor M. 17972 Fro helle to paradys {th}at blis. c1384 WYCLIF Sel. Wks. III. 344 He [the pope] is not blessid in {th}is lif, for blis falli{th} to the to{th}ir lyf. 1509 HAWES Examp. Virt. i. 12, I wyll..brynge thy soule to blesse eterne. 1593 SHAKES. 3 Hen. VI, III. iii. 182 By the hope I haue of heauenly blisse. 1607 T. WALKINGTON Opt. Glass 65 The soul is..wrapt up into an Elysium and paradise of blesse. 1667 MILTON P.L. I. 607 Far other once beheld in bliss. 1781 COWPER Truth 301 The path to bliss abounds with many a snare. 1871 MORLEY Voltaire (1886) 255 Any one who accepted them in the concrete and literal form prescribed by the church, would share infinite bliss.

d. concr. A cause of happiness, joy, or delight.

a1000 Ags. Ps. (Spelm.) xxxi. 9 (Bosw.) {Edh}ú eart blis mín. c1386 CHAUCER Nun's Pr. T. 346 Womman is mannes Ioye and al his blis. 1850 TENNYSON In Mem. xcvii. 26 A wither'd violet is her bliss.

{dag}3. Glory. (Translating gloria and {kappa}{lambda}{geacu}{omicron}{fsigma}.) Obs.

c1200 Trin. Coll. Hom. 115 Quis est iste rex glorie? hwat is {th}is blissene king. a1300 Cursor M. 8100 {Th}e king o blis. 1387 TREVISA Higden II. 363 Hercules is i-seide of heros {th}at is a man, and of cleos {th}at is blisse; as {th}ey Hercules were to menynge a blisful man and glorious.

{dag}4. a bliss of birds: a blithe singing, a ‘choir.’

c1430 LYDG. Min. Poems 228 A blysse of bryddes me bad abyde, For cause there song mo then one.

5. Comb. a. objective, as bliss-giving, bliss-making adjs.; b. adverbial, as bliss-bright.

1610 HEALEY St. Aug. Citie of God 309 This blesse-affording good. 1645 BP. HALL Content. 103 The blisse-making vision of God. 1839 BAILEY Festus xiv. (1848) 147 The bliss-bright stars. 1876 GEO. ELIOT Dan. Der. II. xxvii. 184 The bliss-giving ‘yes.’

bliss n. (alternate)

Texas getting its ass waxed in Bud Walton Arena, Basketball Palace of the Midwest.

I'm so happy right now I could puke. I really might puke. This is the best feeling in the world.

50-48
FUCK TEXAS
WPS